Guiding Questions

How can I bring silence and stillness into my hectic life as a law student? What drives me to seek this silence? How do I stay faithful to a contemplative practice when my daily life activities and obligations seem so all-consuming? What do I see in the Church? In God? Why go to Mass? These questions will change with time, as my journey progresses. This blog documents my struggle with practicing what I preach, so to speak -- my struggle to keep God in the center of my life. At times, I may fail; indeed, I often will. My hope is that both my successes and failures will lead me toward greater authenticity, understanding, and love.

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Currently a 1L, aka a first year law student, I will happily be jumping ship at the end of this semester. My destination? Theology school. More specifically, a master's degree in theology, to be followed by a Ph.D. I will likely explore my reasons for doing so in various posts, so please follow along.

My impetus for re-starting this blog is my upcoming wilderness quest, which I am fashioning as a silent retreat. Four days, three nights, me, a 10' by 10' patch of land, in the wilderness. Alone. Except for the wild animals. I will be supported by a community praying for me, but I do not know if I will be soothed by their prayers when things -- creatures? -- go bump in the night.

I contemplated blogging about my experiences and preparation for some months before I actually began to type. I also thought about praying and meditating daily long before I actually began to put my thoughts into actions. I kept thinking to myself, 'Gee, I should really start meditating regularly. I need to prepare myself for my retreat!' And then days would go by, and weeks -- and I would not have meditated. Life got in the way, I had too much schoolwork, I was too tired -- a litany of common excuses. Then, I went to Mass on Ash Wednesday, February 17th. As I sat in the pew, an overwhelming feeling of hypocrisy washed over me. I thought, 'Who am I to talk about loving God? I speak constantly of how much I love theology, and God, but when is the last time I prayed? When is the last time I sat with God in silence? How can I hold myself out as someone who wants to make God, and the study of Him, her life's work -- when I can't seem to find the time to sit, in silence, and listen?'

As my employer, a former Navy officer, would say, "Whiskey tango foxtrot, over?" Or, in more colloquial terms, "WTF?"

I felt a painful disconnect between the way I was living and the way I wanted to live. All I talked about was my love for God, but my interior life was barren. I knew I had to make a change. I figured keeping a blog would help me be accountable. If I committed to a spiritual practice, I would be less likely to break it. So, here I am. A theological neophyte. Committed to God, yet unsure of my faith and the power of my commitment. Nevertheless...here I go.

I originally began this blog as an assignment for a compulsory Computer Science class. After abandoning it for some years, I decided to re-purpose it as a blog documenting my spiritual life. With a nod to Bernard Lonergan's transcendence, in which one continually strives to surpass, yet encompass, all one was before, I decided to retain my Computer Science posts intact. Though the subject matter is entirely different, the CS posts reflect who I was and what I was doing at a particular stage in my life. Not a Lonergan expert, I cannot claim that is what Lonergan intended when he described transcendence. Nonetheless, the past remains, and I wish to acknowledge this blog's beginnings as well as its future. Let this post, then, mark the curtain between the old and the new.